


A Wolf In the Night to Fetch Me

by Equalopportunityoggler



Series: Holes In Your Coffin [3]
Category: The Dresden Files (TV)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, Case Fic, Harry is never not pining, M/M, Nightmares, Not Beta Read, Pining, Sort Of, Stalking, Violence, all the pining, and kidnapping, but just a little violence, i still don't know what i'm doing, lazy shorthand representations of Wicca, lots of stalking, no beta we die like men, really - Freeform, who are we kidding?, yes this is still all Nathan's fault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:28:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Equalopportunityoggler/pseuds/Equalopportunityoggler
Summary: A few weeks after the events of "All My Friends Are Heathens," Harry makes a new friend, realizes he's being stalked, and must dash off to rescue a former client from being kidnapped... again. Seems like he just can't catch a break.
Relationships: Bob the Skull/Harry Dresden, Hrothbert of Bainbridge/Harry Dresden
Series: Holes In Your Coffin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124402





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to Part Three of my ongoing series Holes In Your Coffin. This is a short three-chapter piece that will lead directly into the MAIN EVENT. A few quick notes:  
> 1) Fic title comes from the song "The Wolf" by Phildel  
> 2) I know I keep tagging these as Bob/Harry, and its all very one-sided Pining!Harry, sorry... we're getting there, though...  
> 3) I really like my OC in this fic, and while I keep the Wiccan content vague in this, I do actually have some knowledge and have done reading on the topic. I was just too lazy to get into particulars here... *shrug*  
> 4) This is all still Nathan's fault

_**Holes In Your Coffin, Part Three:** _

_**A Wolf in the Night to Fetch Me** _

Chapter 1 -

The concrete floor was freezing cold where he knelt, and his kneecaps screamed with pain on the hard surface. There was a fire around him, the searing heat of the flames licking at his arms and his cheeks, singeing his jacket and the tips of his hair, and yet the concrete floor remained freezing cold. The two separate pains merged, becoming one agony screeching along his nerves. But that pain had nothing on the squeezing vice-like grip on his heart and his lungs, as he looked up at the man standing over him. He clutched the long velvet coat in his fingers, and choked on the taste of ash in his throat. And above him, Bob gazed down at him coldly.

“Bob!” he choked out. His fists curled tighter into the coat, trying desperately to keep Bob there, with him. In other circumstances, the fact of Bob’s corporeal, tactile existence would have been cause for celebration and joy. But not like this. Not with Bob’s pale pale eyes piercing him with this icy indifferent stare. Not with Bob’s magic licking flames up his arms, now burning his hands in an attempt to loosen his grip.

“I have no more need of you, Harry,” Bob said. The words were knives stabbing him in the gut.

“Bob!” he cried out again.

The skin of Harry’s hands burned to a charred black, and the curl of his fingers began to lose their grip. Sensing this, Bob jerked his coat free of Harry’s hands and backed away. The flames crawled up Harry’s neck and shoulders.

“Goodbye, Harry,” Bob said. He turned his back and began to walk away, fading from sight with each step.

“Bob!” Harry shouted. “Hrothbert of Bainbridge, I command you!” he yelled. The tall white-haired man faded away entirely and Harry was left along, surrounded by fire.

Another voice, familiar but staying just beyond the edges of his remembrance, echoed in the air above him, around him, through him:  _ Fire and death! You are death! Death death deathdeathdeath! Everything near you will burn and die! Die die DIE DIE DIE! _

Harry shuddered and cried out as if struck by the sound of the voice. “No!” he screamed. “Hrothbert of Bainbridge, I command you!”

“Harry!”

The sharp, clipped tone was Bob at his most stern -- his teacher-voice, the voice he had used when Harry was a child and was not paying attention to his lessons. As that voice sliced through the air, Harry shot straight up in his bed, scrambling to get to his feet, struggling with sheets tangled around his legs. Finally tearing free of the sheets, he stood shakily by the bed, huffing for breath, his chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face and bare chest.

“Bob…?” he asked, cautious, embarrassed.

“Yes, Harry?”

Harry glanced to his right, found Bob standing at the foot of the bed, both hands outstretched as if he had been trying to touch Harry, to shake him free of his nightmare. Concern was etched across every line of his face.

Harry shook his head. “Nothing… thanks for waking me up.”

Bob nodded, hands dropping back to his sides. “Are you quite all right?”

“Yeah…” he breathed. “Or, I will be in a minute or two.” He rubbed both hands over his face, then rolled his shoulders, and finally sat down on the edge of the bed. “Stars and Stones, that was unpleasant…”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Harry blanched at the thought. How much could he possibly embarrass himself in one night?

“You… you were calling for me in your sleep,” Bob admitted. “You sounded…”

Desperate? Pathetic? Harry’s brain supplied, though he kept his mouth shut.

“…distraught,” Bob said finally.

Harry snorted. Understatement of the fucking century, that. “You could… uh… you could say that.”

“Did I do something?”

Harry glanced at Bob. “It was just a bad dream, Bob. Nothing to worry about.”

For a long moment it looked as if Bob was going to push the subject. He still stood at the foot of the bed, looking painfully concerned, and he opened and closed his mouth two or three times, clearly debating what to say or ask. But eventually, he simply nodded and said, “of course. Why don’t you try to go back to sleep.”

Running a shaky hand through his sweaty hair, Harry nodded. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks again for waking me up, Bob.”

“I’m here if you need anything, Harry,” Bob said by way of reply. And then he dissolved into gold dust and flitted back to his skull, sitting peacefully on the nightstand.

Harry had not thought he would be able to fall asleep again after that nightmare, but he did in fact, and awoke at eight in the morning to the feeling of sunshine pouring in from the loft windows and stretching languidly across his bed. It was shockingly pleasant and for a minute or two he just lay there soaking it in until the memory of his nightmare returned to him, along with the embarrassment of Bob having to wake him up because he had been calling out in his sleep.

He scrubbed his face with both hands in frustration, then determined to forget the whole thing, and crawled out of bed in search of coffee. It was while he was sitting at the rickety kitchen table, drinking coffee and wondering what Bob was getting up to this morning, that he decided at least some of his nightmare was fueled by a genuine concern: that Bob, given the choice, would not choose to spend his life or his afterlife, following after Harry and picking up after him when he made a mess; that Bob would much prefer to go do something else, be someplace else — perhaps someplace like his ancestral home in England, or partying it up in the Maldives, or doing magical research in Rome...

And then the thought occurred to him that even if Bob was an incorporeal spirit shackled to his skull, Harry could still do something about some of that.

“Hey, Bob?” He called out.

After a beat or two, Bob flickered into the kitchen and shifted into form. “Yes, Harry?”

“If you could go somewhere, or do something... without worrying about your tether, what would you do first? Where would you want to go?”

Bob blinked, nonplussed. Harry flushed slightly. It was, admittedly, a random question, coming out of nowhere. “You mean like... when I go visit the girls dormitories at the university...?” He asked.

Harry shook his head. “No, if you could go anywhere: Caribbean cruise, Great Wall of China, whatever... Where would you go first?”

Bob stood stock still, staring at him. Confusion and concern flitted across his face. Then uncertainty. Finally, with a gentle resigned shrug, he responded softly: “I would very much like to see my home again...”

Harry nodded, having expected such an answer. “Then we’ll do that,” he said. His voice was firm, decisive.

Bob snorted anyway.

“I’m serious!” 

“And how do you propose to manage that?”

Harry shrugged. “I’ll save up some money.”

“Harry, half the time you can’t make your next lease payment...”

Harry ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know... but I’ll work on it. And I have a handful of favors I could call in. I could manage it in maybe.... say a year?”

Bob looked supremely skeptical, but there was a sparkle in his eyes as he said, “we’ll see...”

“Put it on your calendar, Bob!” Harry exclaimed, animated now. “I’m gonna make it happen!”

That decided, whether Bob believed him or not, Harry downed the last of his coffee and went to open up the office.

It had been just over three weeks since the incident with Robert Blair and the drug called Glow. The early Chicago spring was finally shifting into a true Spring, gifting all Chicagoans with the first warm afternoons they had felt in months. A Chicago winter was no joke, and even after living in the city for over five years, Harry still did not handle the freezing temperatures and piled-high snow and slicing winds like a true native. So when April had brought with it four straight days of temperatures above sixty degrees, with cloudless skies and shimmering afternoon sunshine and a soft breeze, Harry could almost have wept for joy. It was on such a day that Harry found himself walking briskly down the sidewalk in the southern part of the city in an area filled with cute boutiques and indie bookstores and odd little shops, trailing after a woman he had been hired to track down.

It was, frankly, an embarrassingly mundane case: a man had hired him to find out if his ex-girlfriend had stolen some valuable jewelry that had belonged to his late mother. It was boring, and felt decidedly beneath him, but he needed the money. Rent was due soon, as it always seemed to be. So here he was, following a young woman because he suspected she might be headed to a pawn shop with the aforementioned stolen jewelry. Unfortunately, the young woman strode into a hair salon instead, and Harry had no choice but to keep walking by, for fear of making it obvious that he was following her. Instead, he ducked into the next shop-door down, and found that he had accidentally walked into a New Age shop.

New Age shops were not exactly his thing. Harry’s kind tended to point and laugh at the kind of people who frequented New Age shops: kids looking for a thrill or just trying to terrify their parents, twenty-somethings who turned to tarot and astrology in an attempt to make sense of their inane lives, and deluded neo-pagans who genuinely believed they had some kind of access to nature or the divine or the devil or whatever else was in vogue at the moment. But he had walked in, and there was nowhere to go while he waited for the young woman he was trailing to come out of the hair salon, so… he stepped farther in and was immediately greeted by a woman standing behind a cash register.

The woman was young and pretty: perhaps twenty-five or so, with hair so black it was almost blue in the light, a lightly gold tan, and striking dark eyes. She was sporting three earrings in each ear and a nose ring, and she wore an all-black outfit of the kind one would expect in a shop like this. She was only missing the wide-brimmed hat. Probably sitting in the back with her broom, Harry thought with an internalized smirk. He said none of this, of course, but simply gave a polite hello in return and wandered into the narrow shop to pass the time.

For a few minutes he simply wandered the shop, glancing at the supply of crystals and incense and oils with genuine interest: plenty of these were things he could legitimately use in the workshop. His eyes slid over the shelf full of occult books with much less interest - most of that tended to be drivel as far as he was concerned. Then he paused and stopped, and reached out to touch a stack of pamphlets sitting at the end of the shelf. At that moment, the young woman from behind the cash register approached him with a smile and asked, “can I help you look for anything today?”

Harry pulled the first pamphlet off the stack and held it up to her. “Where’d you get these from?” he asked.

With a glance at the pamphlet, she said, “my boss is a fan of his, grabs several copies every time he releases a new pamphlet. You can take one if you’re interested. We don’t charge for those, just let people take one if they want it.”

Harry couldn’t help himself. He grinned. He was holding up one of his own pamphlets. “I think I’m good… I, uh… I’m actually the guy who wrote these.”

The young woman blinked in surprise. “You’re not…”

He held out his hand to shake: “Harry Dresden, at your service.”

For a beat or two, the woman stared at him with wide eyes. Then she seemed to recover and shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Alexandria Cunningham. Alex, to my friends.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Ms. Cunningham.”

“Please, call me Alex,” she said, giving him a thousand-watt grin. And well, he did believe he was being flirted with… what a pleasant change of pace from the usual cursing, screaming, and death threats. Alex leaned in just a touch and gave him a conspiratorial look, asking: “are you really a wizard? Like…  _ really  _ really?”

“ _ Really really _ .”

“I’d love to pick your brain sometime.”

“I’m not sure my style of magic would fit with your Wiccan sensibilities… Different, uh… belief structures, I think.”

She grinned again. “All the better,” she said. “I love a good ecumenical discussion. I’ve read your pamphlets so I’m already aware of some differences. We can argue about the relative merits of crystals and runes sometime… It’d be fun.”

At that Harry grinned as well. This woman seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders, and would give him a run for his money on a discussion of magical theory. In fact, he suspected putting Alex in a room with Bob could be vastly amusing.

“I think I’d enjoy that,” he said. He dug in his jacket pocket for a business card and handed it to her. “Stop by any time.” At that moment, he happened to catch sight of the woman he was tailing walking by through the shop window. She had a bag of hair supplies in one hand, so apparently she had just stopped in for shampoos and what-not, rather than a full hair appointment. “Ah, crap!” he hissed, and dashed towards the door. “I gotta run,” he said quickly to Alex, “but seriously, stop by some time!”

And then he was out the door and following his target at a respectable distance once again.

An hour later he had returned to his office/apartment with proof that the ex-girlfriend had, in fact, stolen his client’s mother’s jewelry and sold it to a pawnshop. He contacted his client, explained everything, advised him to file a report with the police, charged him his hourly rate, and called it a day.

At no point did Harry notice the average-looking man that tailed him from the apartment, to the shopping district, to the New Age shop, and pawn shop, and back to the apartment that day. Just as the ex-girlfriend had not realized she was being followed until the moment Harry’s client called the cops to report her, Harry likewise would not realize he was being followed into it was nearly too late.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...the quiet before the storm...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening, everyone, and apologies for the lateness of this update! In my defense, I live in Texas where (you may or may not have seen on the news) we had a really rough week, due to a freak snow/ice storm and the collapsed infrastructure. I was without power almost the entire week, and without water for parts of it. It was very cold and very stressful and a touch traumatizing if I’m being honest. The whole week felt like some kind of insane black hole. But, the power has been back on and stable for nearly 48 hours now. We are under a “boil water” notice, but at least the water is working. And the temperatures are starting to rise again. So everything is slowly settling and returning to normal, and I’ll be back at work on Monday as if nothing happened.
> 
> So now we move on to the chapter… ENJOY!

_**Holes In Your Coffin, Part Three:** _

_**A Wolf in the Night to Fetch Me** _

Chapter 2 -

Sometimes Harry wondered what it must be like to live a normal life: no magic, no working dire cases with cops, no ghosts for friends, no life-and-death situations. Just normal things like movie nights, and going on dates, road trips, and… he didn’t even know what… mortgages? Marriage, maybe? He sighed and shrugged to himself, because let’s be real, he’d probably get bored if things stayed quiet for too long. Still, it might be nice to let things stay quiet and normal for a little while and find out if he got bored with it or not. For more than a month now things had been very quiet, and while he wasn’t loving some of the ridiculously banal cases he had accepted of late in order to pay the bills, he wasn’t bored enough yet to complain of the normalcy.

A little voice deep in the back of his head warned him that this was all probably just the quiet before the storm - yet another storm in a long life of increasingly violent storms. A very large part of him was, therefore, unsurprised when he got a call from Sheryl Sharpe, saying: “I think someone is following Scott again.”

Sheryl Sharpe was the mother of Scott Sharpe, a little boy with magical potential whom he had helped rescue over a year ago now. The boy’s potential was so great that he had managed to gain the attention of the Raven Clan, initially hired to protect him, and a particularly nasty murderous Skin-walker who had clearly been working for someone, though Harry never discovered who. Having killed the Skin-walker and appeased the Ravens as to Scott’s safety, he had returned the boy to his frantic mother with the promise to come if they ever needed his help again. He had rather hoped that that call would never come, or that if it did it would be years from now, when Scott was older, had come into his power, and was more prepared to deal with the nastier elements of the magical world he was destined for.

But apparently that was not to be the case. Stars and Stones, Harry, this is what you get for worrying about boredom, he told himself. Then he pulled together a few supplies, just in case, and drove out to visit the Sharpes.

Sheryl was waiting for him at the door, with a steaming cup of coffee ready to hand to him. He smiled appreciatively and stepped in, following her to the living room. Scott was not there and he looked around for half a second before Sheryl said, “he’s in his room. I asked him to let me talk to alone for a minute.”

Harry nodded. “What more can you tell me?”

She took a sip of her own coffee, left on a side table. Harry mimicked her, sipping his coffee while she gathered her thoughts. Finally, she took a deep breath and started.

“I’m not sure how long it’s been going on. But Scott noticed something two days ago. At first I thought he was just being paranoid, but after last time I know to pay attention when he has a bad feeling about something, you know?”

Harry nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“So I started watching. I’ve seen the same man now at the grocery store, at the pharmacy, outside Scott’s school when I go to pick him up. I thought about just confronting him myself, but that seemed…”

“Unwise?” Harry provided. 

She quirked a wry smile. “Yeah. So… I called you instead.”

Harry placed his coffee gently on the squat coffee table in front of him. “That was probably best,” he said. “Since I haven’t had a chance to see this guy following you myself, I can’t say for sure if it’s anything to worry about yet. It’s possible he’s another member of the Raven Clan, or someone similar, sent just to keep an eye on Scott. But just to be safe I’ll put a few more wards around the house, and I’ve brought a new protective charm for Scott too.”

Sheryl nodded.

“But…” Harry said, “none of this would be a secret from Scott. There’s something else you wanted to talk to me about, isn’t there? Something you didn’t want Scott to hear?”

Sheryl closed her eyes and sighed softly. “It’s not… bad… exactly. Just concerning.”

“What?”

“You said once that Scott was special. Like the way you’re special? And that if things got… weird… I should call you.”

“Yeah…”

“Well, things are getting weird. Besides the man following us, I mean.”

“How so?”

“I went in to check on Scott in the middle of the night once, a couple weeks ago, and he was floating six inches above his bed,” Sheryl said in one long exhalation of breath.

Harry blinked. He had been expecting Scott’s powers to begin manifesting eventually, but he hadn’t expected anything quite that dramatic. At least not yet.

“And that’s not all,” Sheryl continued. “He can boil water in a cup just by holding it in both hands. And birds - not just ravens this time, but all birds - will come fly down to him and seem to… talk to him…”

“Ah,” Harry said, unhelpfully, he knew.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” Sheryl sighed. “Half the time he doesn’t seem aware he’s doing anything. And it’s… terrifying, frankly.”

“I understand,” Harry said gently, “it’s a lot to deal with alone. He’s going to need training sooner than I thought.”

“Is that something you can do?”

“I can definitely help, yes. There are plenty of basics I can teach him, at the very least teach him some control… But eventually he will need a better teacher than I would be.” He paused, considering. He didn’t exactly have any training or experience as a teacher. There were many people more qualified to be Scott’s long-term mentor. Perhaps Morgan would know someone who could help. Or, “…perhaps Bob would be up for it…” he mused aloud.

“Who’s Bob?”

Harry blinked. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “He’s…” He stopped. My best friend, my roommate, my own personal ghost companion, my little obsession. He winced. Finally, he settled on: “he’s the one who trained me.”

“Ah,” Sheryl said.

“But!” Harry continued brightly, “we can discuss that more later. Right now let’s just get some more protection in place.”

Sheryl called Scott out into the living room, and he came in smiling and gave Harry a hug around his waist. Scott had grown an inch or two in the past year, but otherwise he looked largely the same. Round, innocent face, big dark eyes, and shaggy blond hair that hung long around his face. 

Affectionately, Harry ruffled his hair, saying, “you need a haircut, kid.”

Having settled the boy down, and sitting him down on the sofa beside him, Harry pulled a long silver chain and amulet out of his jacket pocket. “I’ve got something for you. Hold out your hand.”

Scott did as he was told, holding out his hand as Harry slowly settled the amulet and chain into his palm. Then Harry wrapped both of his large hands around Scott’s tiny one and pressed gently until there was a soft glow in the center. Letting go, he nodded, content with the magic.

“What is it?” Scott asked.

“It’s a protection charm. I just attuned it to you specifically. It should shield you from detection by other magical forces, and protect you from attack. Now, I want to be clear: this is a good charm but there are always things that are more powerful that could break through even my magic if they try hard enough. This isn’t completely, uh… bullet-proof, so to speak. So don’t take any unnecessary risks, okay?”

Scott nodded with big, earnest eyes.

“But don’t worry too much, kid,” Harry said, ruffling the boy’s hair again. “It’ll work just fine against most things. Just wear it under your shirt all the time, and don’t take it off except when you’re safe at home.”

“Okay.”

Next, Harry went to work adding more wards around the house. First, he added wards around each window and door that led to the outside. Then he walked outside and beefed up the wards he had around the entire perimeter of the house. To do so, he lit a small candle he had tucked away in his jacket and walked first clockwise around the house, muttering a spell, and then once more around the house, counterclockwise. When he was done, he said the finishing word and blew the candle out. There was a flash of green and blue glittering light, and he felt the wards to come life along his skin and in the back of his head. He nodded to himself again. He had always been better at battle magic than protective magic, but these wards were pretty damn good if he did say so himself.

When he had finished the wards, and finished another cup of coffee at Sheryl’s insistence, Harry bid the Sharpes an affectionate farewell with a promise to check up on them. He also determined to stop by and see Murphy, and ask if she’d be willing to keep an eye on Scott and his mother as well, just in case.

*

Despite the concern caused by the possibility that someone might be following Scott Sharpe again, the next few days remained quiet and uneventful. Harry had a couple quick lost objects cases to keep him busy for two or three days, and he even had lunch with Murphy at the end of the week, purely for the pleasure of her company — which was something that almost never happened. It was all shockingly normal and peaceful.

Peaceful, that was, except for Harry’s increasingly frequent nightmares. Not only were the nightmares a now-daily (or rather nightly) occurrence, but they were in fact a two-or-three-per-night occurrence. They did not always feature Bob (sometimes they featured the voice of Casey Burbank howling at Harry, dooming him to fire and death with milky sightless eyes), but they often did: Bob betraying him in favor of serving Uncle Justin, again; or Bob regaining his corporeal form and simply deciding to leave him; or Bob killing him just for the fun of it; or Bob dying in his arms because of some stupid reckless thing Harry had done now.

After a night or two of waking up, trembling and covered in sweat, occasionally shouting Bob’s name, the embarrassment had become so bad that Harry had left Bob’s skull downstairs in the living room three nights in a row. It would not actually stop Bob from hearing Harry’s nightmares if he so chose, but it gave Harry a false sense of privacy that he was desperate for.

“Harry, perhaps we should talk about...” Bob began grimly on the morning after the sixth night of truly horrific nightmares.

“Nothing to talk about!” Harry said brightly, while pouring beer into his cereal - breakfast of champions.

“Harry...”

“Hey Bob, you ever wonder where the phrase ‘breakfast of champions’ originates from?” Harry asked, determinedly. 

“These nightmares are becoming quite concerning...” Bob pressed on.

“I mean... there’s Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, but I think it was already a well-known phrase by the time he wrote it, surely?”

“I think it might help if you actually talk about...”

“I’d love to look up the history of the phrase, but of course, I’d fry any computer I went near.”

“Harry!” Bob snapped.

“Yes, Bob?” Harry replied, giving him a wide-eyed look of feigned innocent that could have made a corpse gag.

“I am trying to have a serious conversation here!”

“And I am studiously trying to avoid it!” Harry said breezily. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“Oh, I noticed...” Bob said, his voice and his face dark with anger and concern.

“Good. Glad we cleared that up. Now, drop it.” Harry shot up from his seat abruptly, and then dumped his barely-eaten cereal and beer in the sink before storming off.

“Harry!” Bob called after him. “Damn it.”

*

Except for the nightmares, and Bob’s continued attempts to discuss said nightmares, Harry really was astounded by how quiet and normal things remained. So normal, in fact, that when the Wiccan he had met over a week ago walked into the office, he didn’t even bat an eye. He simply exclaimed: “Alexandria Cunningham! To what do I owe the pleasure?” He smiled when she grinned, her eyes crinkly with delight, clearly surprised and happy that he had remembered her name.

“Hello, Harry,” Alex said, “You said I could stop by for an ecumenical debate any time, so I decided to take you up on your offer.”

At the corner of his eye, Harry noticed the little glowing dust motes of Bob about to come into focus, then saw the motes float away as Bob realized Harry had company. He repressed a sigh of relief and gestured for Alex to come into the living room area.

“Tea?” He offered. And she nodded, he set about the pleasant ritual of boiling a pot of water - in an old-fashioned copper tea kettle on the stove, as no microwave had ever survived long around him and his magical field - and making tea. While he made the tea, Alex occupied herself by being blatantly, unapologetically noisy: wandering around the living room with her hands tucked behind her back, leaning down to peer at the spines of books on a table, examining the tapestries and posters on the walls with amusement, and inspecting the runes and ward signs etched into most flat surfaces with what Harry could only call “professional interest.”

“Did you mean for this one to be here?” She asked, pointing to one sigil in particular. 

Harry laughed, saying, “...and so it begins...” He walked over, handing her a steaming cup of tea, and peered at the symbol she was pointing to. “Of course, I did!”

What followed was a lively debate with the Wiccan. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that, while she had no actual magical ability, Alex seemed to have a firm understanding of the lore and theories behind it. They discussed runes and sigils, the meaning and uses of various herbs and spices, whether differently colored candles were really necessary for different kinds of spellwork (“it really doesn’t matter,” Harry insisted; “I’m telling you, it does!” Alex exclaimed), and had moved onto use of English, Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew in various kinds of spells - something Harry did not adhere to all that much in his own work, though he understand the value of it - by the time he noticed the time. They had been chatting, arguing and laughing simultaneously really, for well over two and half hours, and he was due to meet Murphy at the precinct to fill out some paperwork.

Apologetic, but still laughing, Harry ushered her out of the apartment and moved to grab his jacket and follow her out when Bob materialized beside him.

“And who was she?” Bob asked. Harry shot Bob a look, startled by the tone of his voice: he had sounded as if he was trying for teasing, even lascivious as he often was, but had failed spectacularly, landing instead somewhere between curious and annoyed. For half a second he thought the tone had sounded almost jealous, but that was ridiculous.

Harry shrugged. “Alex Cunningham. Met her at a New Age shop a week and half ago, while I was tailing someone for a case. We just got to chatting and she seemed friendly and entertaining, so...” he shrugged again.

“Ah,” Bob said. “She’s very pretty.”

“Yes, I suppose she is.”

“And she was clearly flirting with you...”

“Maybe...”

“So. Someone new for you to break your heart over, again, I take it?”

Harry rolled his eyes at that and scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bob.” My heart is previously occupied, he thought, but did not say.

“Hmmm...” Bob hummed, unconvinced, and turned away. Harry watched his face in profile for a moment or two, wanting to say something to defend himself. But really, what could he say that wouldn’t be either painfully revealing and embarrassing, or wholly unconvincing?

“Never mind,” he said, more to himself than Bob. And walked out for his meeting with Murphy.

Perhaps, later, he could blame his preoccupation with Bob for the fact that he once again did not notice the same plain, average-looking man lounging against a streetlight directly across the street. The man was smoking a cigarette and looked as if he did not have a care in the world. But he had been there, eyes trained on Harry’s office door for hours. And when Harry got into his Jeep and drove away, the man called a cab to follow.

The next time Alex stopped by the office apartment, only a few days later, Bob happened to be standing in the living room — as he could not sit — while Harry lounged on the sofa. They were talking, amiably for once, about a book of all things. Harry’s stack of well-worn paperbacks was unwieldy but deeply enjoyed by both men. Usually, Harry would finish a book and then leave it for Bob to read, which he did easily by simply sticking his head straight through the cover of the book, reading each page as he went. Bob had a soft-spot for romances, which Harry never quite understood but found wildly amusing. For once, they had read a book that was both a classic and a romance — namely Wuthering Heights — and they were in the middle of debating the ratio of sympathetic to monstrous in the characters of Catherine and Heathcliff (Harry paying as much, or more attention, the animated expressions on Bob’s face and the way he moved his hands about as he spoke, as to what he was actually saying), when there came a knock on the locked door.

Harry jumped nearly out of his skin, and shot a look at the window-fronted door to find Alex’s face peering in with a bright smile. Well, she had already seen Bob so he couldn’t very well vanish into thin air at this point.

“I guess I’ll have to introduce you, Bob,” he muttered as he went to open the door. “Alex!” he greeted brightly, “what can I do for you?”

“Actually, I come bearing gifts,” Alex said, and she held out a takeout bag from Harry’s favorite Chinese restaurant. “You mentioned you liked this place, and while you didn’t mention that money is tight, I had a suspicion, and took a risk that you wouldn’t turn down free food.” She stepped into the room and glanced at Bob, acting as if she was just noticing him though she would clearly have been able to see him through the glass door.

“I’m sorry!” she said, “I didn’t realize Harry had company, or I would have brought more!”

Harry found it interesting to note that she said she would have brought more food, not that she wouldn’t have come at all… He glanced, amused, at Bob. Bob, who Harry could have sworn, was gritting his teeth and glaring daggers at the young woman for half a beat, before he shook his head and smiled.

“That’s quite alright, Miss…”

“Alexandria Cunningham,” Alex offered.

“Miss Cunningham… I’ve already eaten dinner,” Bob lied smoothly.

Alex nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer, and turned to Harry: “wanna grab some forks?”

“Uh…” Harry blinked. He looked at Alex, then at Bob, unsure how to handle Bob’s not-quite-human status, and then nodded dumbly. “Yeah, sure…”

*

As Harry walked out of sight, headed for the kitchen in the back, Bob turned his most predatory smile on Miss Alexandria Cunningham, and asked, “and how long have you known Harry, my dear? I don’t believe he’s mentioned you before.”

Alex smiled, apparently not noticing the barb in Bob’s words and voice, and answered, “oh, we just met a couple weeks ago. He wandered into the shop I work at and we got to talking about magic and Wicca… he was so friendly and charming, even if he doesn’t want to admit that the color of a candle used in a spell makes enormous difference…” She said this last bit loudly, pitched so that Harry would hear from the kitchen, with a teasing note to her voice.

“No, it doesn’t!” Harry called out with a laugh. Then he added, “give me a minute! All the forks are dirty!”

Bob snorted softly, and said, “I’d have to agree with Harry on that one.”

“Oh! You know about magic too?” Alex asked.

“Indeed. I taught Harry most of what he knows on the subject.”

Alex blinked at that, clearly surprised. “You must’ve known him a long time then…”

“You could say that.”

Bob looked at her, really looked at her. His clear pale blue eyes bore into her. She was, of course, very pretty. And clearly she was bright. She noticed his intense regard and merely smiled placidly at him, and that put his hackles up despite himself. She was not annoyed, or threatened, or even especially defensive. She just seemed… sweet. And that annoyed him even more, because really, what could he possibly do about a sweet, pretty, intelligent girl flirting with Harry seemingly without any pretense or ulterior motive?

Nothing, that’s what, he told himself, and suppressed a sigh.

Harry returned a moment later with clean forks and a nervous smile twitching on his face. Bob found the anxiousness oddly charming and smiled at him warmly. A second later, however, he decided he really wasn’t equipped to watch Harry and this pretty woman flirt for half the night, and excused himself. He didn’t even bother to wait around and listen to how Harry explained his presence. With bitterness, he realized it simply didn’t matter. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finally puts two and two together, and realizes he's being followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delay in getting this chapter posted! I’ve just had a very busy couple weeks and I’ve been too exhausted by the time I get home from work to do much more than stare blankly at the tv. In any case, here is the third and final chapter of Wolf in the Night to Fetch Me. Next week, barring any complications, I will start posting Part Four of Holes In Your Coffin. This will be the MAIN ATTRACTION, as it were, so get excited! I’m planning to get that editing and posted next Monday or Tuesday *fingers crossed* so keep your eyes open. And without further ado, away we go!

**_Holes In Your Coffin, Part Three:_ **

**_A Wolf in the Night to Fetch Me_ **

Chapter 3 -

For a licensed PI, it took Harry an embarrassingly long time to finally realize that someone was following him, and probably had been following him for quite some time now that he paused and scanned back through his memories of the last couple weeks. Whoever it was had done a very good job of seeming completely innocuous. It was Laura at the diner who had finally clued Harry in -- and on purpose, of course, but when she had greeted the man sitting in the booth two behind Harry with a “hello again! Third day in a row you’ve been in here, isn’t it?” Harry had glanced back and realized with a jolt that he had been seeing that same man everywhere.

The man was middling-tall, broad-shouldered, but very average-looking. Kind of like Harry himself, if he was being honest. Brown hair, brown eyes, no distinctive features at all. He was wearing jeans and a light jacket over a sweatshirt. Nothing unusual. As he catalogued his memories of the last few days, he realized he had seen this man at the diner, the grocery store, half a block behind him while he was tailing a client’s ex-girlfriend, across the street from his apartment, in a parking lot near the police station when he went to see Murphy. Fucking  _ everywhere _ .

When Harry glanced back at him, the man met his gaze for the tiniest fraction of a second before looking up to smile at the waitress as if he hadn’t a care in the world. But Harry knew that sharp look in his eyes for what it was -- the realization that he had been made. Harry knew that look well not only because he had seen it on any number of people he had investigated in his career, but also because he had worn that same expression on his own face a time or two over the years.

With his own smile to Laura, the waitress, Harry slid out of his own booth and slid into the seat across from his tail’s table. “Hi,” he said brightly. “You new to the area? Don’t think I’ve seen you around before the last couple days, and I’m a regular here, so I would know.”

The man swallowed thickly. Harry watched his Adam’s apple bob and gave the man his best shit-eating grin. “I’m Harry, nice to meet ya!”

He stretched his hand out to shake, and the man stared at him, considering, before finally reaching out to shake his hand. “Hi, I’m... Seth.”

Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes. That kind of pause made it abundantly clear that “Seth” was a fake name. He squeezed “Seth’s” hand, not painfully hard but with firm strength, and when the man tried to pull away, Harry held on.

Still holding the man’s hand, Harry leaned forward slightly and said conspiratorially, “Now, Seth... we’re going to sit here and have a pleasant dinner, and smile politely to Laura, our friendly waitress. And then you are going to explain to me why you’re following me.”

Again, Seth swallowed hard. Laura walked over with Harry’s country-fried steak dinner, and Seth’s coffee, saying “the rest of your food will be out shortly, hon.” At that, Harry let go of Seth’s hand, looking for all the world as if he’d just made a new friend, and started eating his food, all while keeping a sharp eye on the man across from him.

A little twitch of Seth’s shoulders warned Harry that he was thinking about making a dash for it. But Harry bore into him with serious dark eyes, and said “ _ Stay _ ,” and Seth stayed.

There was no way of knowing, yet, if Seth was involved in the secret world of magic and wizards and the like, or if his interest in Harry came from the more mundane side of his work. So Harry did not reveal any of the tricks up his sleeve — a few of them quite literally — just yet. He needed to wait this out, and see what his new friend Seth had to say for himself first.

Laura returned after a minute, with Seth’s order, which she plopped down with a grin. Seth returned a wobbly smile and then stared down at his plate.

“Eat,” Harry ordered, “and then talk.”

Seth picked at the fries on his plate nervously, glancing back and forth between his hands and Harry’s face every few moments. Eventually, Harry said simply, “who do you work for?”

That was an obvious first question, as Seth clearly wasn’t in this for himself. He was way too anxious about being caught. He definitely answered to someone.

“No one,” Seth lied.

“Tell me another one,” Harry deadpanned.

“I... I have... n-no clue what you’re talking about.”

“You aren’t very good at this. You know that, right?”

Seth stared down at his plate, and Harry tapped the table hard with two fingers.

“Look at me,” he commanded. And Seth looked him straight in the eye. “Why are you following me? And who sent you? Morgan? Ancient Mai? Who?”

At the name ‘Ancient Mai’ Seth’s face blanched and his eyes widened. Harry hoped this guy never tried to play poker. At the very least, he recognized the name, which answered at least one question: this had something to do with magic, and not the more mundane parts of life. Great, fantastic, exactly what he needed right now. Really!

“I... don’t... I didn’t... I’m not...” the man stuttered. Harry rolled his eyes. This guy was seriously bad at this.

Now that he knew this man had at least some basic knowledge of magic and the White Council, Harry felt no qualms in flexing his muscles a bit, so to speak. So he reached into his jacket and pulled out his drumstick wand, and placed it on the table, one hand resting on it casually. Seth watched this movement with rapt attention but did not seem to entirely understand until Harry twitched a single finger and a tiny lightning bolt shot from the drumstick and burned a tiny hole in the shiny vinyl of the booth seat, inches from Seth’s shoulder. Somehow, the man’s face paled even more, and his eyes became wide dark saucers of fear.

“Now... let’s try this again, or the next bolt won’t miss. And no one in this whole diner will ever be the wiser.”

“But... but the Council...?” Seth insisted.

“Do you know who I am?” Harry demanded. The man nodded mutely. “Then you know I’m not too terribly concerned about what the Council thinks.” Of course this was not, strictly speaking, true. But Harry had a reputation — a vastly unfair reputation in his opinion — and that reputation would be useful right now.

“Are we clear on where we stand?” Harry asked. Seth nodded again. “Good. Now: why are you following me, and who sent you?”

“I don’t... I don’t know who, exactly,” Seth said. Harry’s eyes narrowed. “I swear! My brother and I were just hired to do a job. The calls and the paychecks come from France. Voice is disguised, but I think it might be a woman... maybe? That’s all I know!”

“And what were you and your brother hired to do?” Harry questioned, filing away the fact of a brother somewhere out there for later consideration.

“One of us to follow you and report on all your movements. That’s it, no interference. Just report.”

“And the other?”

“To track down some kid,” Seth shrugged.

Harry froze. Ice shot down his spine. “What kid?”

“Scott something... I don’t know. Just some kid. I don’t know why.”

Stars and Stones! Scott. Harry’s Scott. Scott, the kid protected by Ravens and hunted down by a skin-walker. Scott, who’s mother had already felt like they were being followed again. That was decidedly not good.

Something white-hot and animalistic flared up in Harry’s chest. He imagined it might be some small fraction of what mothers felt when their child was in danger. And something of what he felt must have shone in his eyes, because even without a soul-gaze the man across from him looked stricken and horrified. He shot up from the booth and scurried out of the diner before Harry even had time to react. Harry considered chasing after him for a heartbeat or two, then realized he had something even more important to do. In a rush, he threw a bunch of cash on the table, not even sure if it was enough to cover his bill or not, waved apologetically to Laura, and then dashed out of the diner as well. But he did not try to follow after Seth. Instead, he jumped into his Jeep to head for Scott and Sheryl Sharpe.

*

Scott was on his way home from school. The bus dropped him off just a block from his house, so it was a quick walk, and any other boy of his age would have thought little of the very short distance between the adult supervision of the bus driver and the safety of his front door. But Scott was not, of course, any other boy his age, and he knew all too well that there were very real reasons to be nervous. It had only been a little over a year since his teacher had been murdered by a skin-walker, and he was kidnapped by the Raven clan, only to be rescued by Harry Dresden. And he was absolutely certain he was being followed again.

With a deep breath, Scott pressed a hand to his chest where, under his shirt and sweater, lay the protective amulet that Harry had given him. He would be fine, he told himself. It was all fine. The few minutes walk from the bus stop to his house was uneventful, and he stomped up the four steps to his front door with confidence.

And then he screamed.

A pair of large hands had grabbed him from behind, one hand pressed against his mouth while the other arm wrapped around his torso. Fear and panic flooded him, and he kicked out, and bit the hand on his mouth. A man’s voice cried out in pain and the hand on his mouth moved, but not the one around his torso. Help, he thought desperately. Then, as if on command -- and perhaps it was -- Scott felt the amulet beneath his shirt begin to burn. It burned the skin of his chest, but not horribly. It was like a cup of tea that was just a little hotter than was comfortable. Yet, somehow, it burned outward through his shirt and sweater, and scorched the hand of the man holding him. With a howl, the man loosened his grip and stumbled away.

In that moment another voice rang out from the street: “Scott!” And then “Forzare!”

Scott whirled around in time to see Harry Dresden storming up the sidewalk from the road, face as dark as a thundercloud, both hands stretched out. Then, at the second word from Harry’s lips, Scott watched his attacker grunt from the force of an invisible shove, and fly backwards, landing with a dull thud on the grass of Scott’s front lawn.

“Harry!” Scott cried out, rushing forward to wrap his arms around the man’s waist and bury his face in the leather jacket.

“It’s okay, kid,” Harry said, pressing one hand against the side of Scott’s face like a half-hug, “I’ve got you.”

*

Harry saw it happening as he drove up in the Jeep. He saw Scott walking up his front steps, saw the man appear out of nowhere and rush the unsuspecting kid. Blood and anger roared in his ears as he threw the Jeep into park and then threw himself out of the Jeep almost before it had stopped rolling. Scott was kicking and screaming, as Harry ran up from the road. The man was howling with pain and letting go of Scott as Harry shouted for him.

Now, with the man winded on the ground and Scott pressed against one hip, Harry had a second to catch his breath and try to wrestle his rage into control. When Scott’s attacker -- he had no doubt it was “Seth’s” brother -- scrambled to his feet, Harry knew he had not succeeded in reining in his anger.

“You!” He growled. “Congratulations, you have pissed me off.” The man reared back, as if preparing to attack -- either physically or magically, Harry wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “Fuego!” he shouted, one arm raised, and fire burst to life on the man’s pants, crawling up his legs and torso.

The man screeched and fell to the ground once more, rolling to smother the flames. But Harry’s fire wouldn’t be snuffed out so easily, and they burned and burned as the man panicked. Harry let go of Scott and stepped up to the man. With his dark eyes burrowing into the man’s skull, Harry waved a hand and the fire dissipated.

“Move,” Harry said coolly, “I dare you.”

The man did not move other than to whimper in pain. Harry knew the man would live. He had kept tight control of the flames, and the burns would not be as bad as the initial pain.

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Harry said, a dark half-smile twisting his face. Without taking his eyes off the man on the ground, Harry asked, “Kid, where’s your mother?”

“At work.”

“Okay. Go inside. Call the cops. No, call Detective Murphy.” He dug around his pockets for Murphy’s card and tossed it to Scott. “That’s her number. Call her and tell her what happened and that I have things under control and ask her to come. And then call your mother and ask her to come home. Got it?”

“Yeah.” Scott nodded and dashed into the house for a phone.

Once Scott was safely inside, with the wards humming protectively in the air, Harry crouched down beside the man. “What’s your name? And don’t give me anymore fake names like your brother did. I don’t have time for this bullshit and the cops are going to find out your real name soon enough.”

“P-P-Paul...” the man stuttered.

“Paul what?”

“Marshall.”

“And your brother? I assume his name isn’t really ‘Seth.’”

“Harold,” Paul Marshall answered.

Harry nodded. Having their names would be useful. “And who hired you two? Who hired you to follow me and grab the kid?”

“I-I-I... I don’t know, I swear!”

And because he knew Paul was in pain and terrified, Harry believed him. He suppressed a disappointed sigh. Then he grabbed Paul’s jacket in both hands and hauled him into a half-sitting position, his face right in Paul’s face, eyes hard as flint.

“You’re going to go to jail, Paul. Your brother might not, since the only thing I can prove him guilty of is stalking me. But either way, this is a warning for both of you. You come after me or anyone under my protection ever again, either now, or whenever you happen to get out of prison, and believe me... you will live to regret it. But not long. We clear?”

Paul nodded frantically.

Harry gave the man a hard shake, and then opened both hands and let the man drop back to the ground with a loud ‘oof.’ As Harry stood again, he could not resist kicking Paul hard, once in the ribs, just for good measure. He would feel bad about that later, scared as he was of his own occasional dark impulses, but right this moment he was too angry to feel much of anything but vindictive.

A second later, Scott emerged from the house, a cordless phone still in his hand. “They’re both on their way,” he said.

Harry nodded. “Good. Mr. Marshall is going to _ stay right there _ while we wait,” he added firmly, and Paul Marshall nodded again vigorously.

Harry and Scott sat down on the front steps of Scott’s house, and Harry could feel the wards jingling and humming against his back. Paul Marshall sat up but otherwise stayed precisely where he was in the middle of the lawn, his head tilted down but his eyes often glancing over to watch Harry warily.

Murphy arrived first, and very quickly. Though that didn’t surprise Harry. After all, Scott Sharpe had just told the detective that he had nearly been kidnapped and that Harry was there. Scott might even have mentioned precisely how angry Harry had been. Murphy had reason to worry on several counts, then. She walked up to them, not at a panicked pace precisely, but briskly, both of her eyebrows raised to her hairline in shock.

“What the hell happened?” She demanded as she reached Harry. She resisted the urge to plant both hands on her hips, but it was a near thing. “What... is all this... about?” She gestured to Harry and then to the man sitting in the grass, smoke still rising from his burned trousers.

“Heya, Murph!” Harry greeted brightly. That the cheeriness of his tone was forced they both knew but neither commented on. “Meet Mr. Paul Marshall. Paul, say hello to Detective Murphy of the Chicago PD.”

Paul waved mutely on command, like a beaten dog, and Murphy’s eyebrows shot up so high they nearly disappeared into her curly dark hair.

“Mr. Marshall here,” Harry continued, unperturbed, “just attempted to kidnap our young friend Scott, right off his front steps. A fact that Scott will, no doubt, be able to give you a statement about, and to which Mr. Marshall will be quite willing to confess. Isn’t that right, Mr. Marshall?” The tone of Harry’s voice was dark and cold, and he turned his flinty eyes on Paul again. Paul nodded.

“Uh-huh...” Murphy said, crossing her arms. “And you?”

“I just happened to drive up right in time to witness the attempted kidnapping and intervened. Clearly.”

“And that’s all?” Murphy glanced pointedly at Paul’s burned and smoking legs.

“There was a bit of struggle, but nothing catastrophic.”

“Right... well...” It was clear from Murphy’s expression that she had many questions, or complaints, or criticisms, or something, but after a second she merely nodded, deciding to keep them to herself. She strode over to Paul Marshall and hauled him to his feet, ready with a pair of handcuffs. “Paul Marshall, you are under arrest...”

Harry didn’t listen to the rest of Murphy’s recitation of the Miranda Rights, because at that moment, Sheryl Sharpe drove up and practically flew out of her car.

“Scott!” She screamed.

Scott ran to her and they fell together in a hug that was more a tangle of limbs.

“Are you okay?” She asked. “What happened exactly?”

In a breathless rush, Scott told her what had happened while Murphy was dragging Paul Marshall to her car. When Scott had finished, Sheryl walked over to Harry and gave him a watery smile. “It seems I have to thank you yet again.”

Harry shrugged. “It was nothing, really.”

And then Murphy was back, telling them all that they needed to come to the station to give full statements, and all the usual. Harry was so used to this routine that the entire process of going to the police station and sitting in a room and filling out paperwork and answering questions barely even penetrated the haze that slowly enveloped him. His brain was working double-time, pulling bits and pieces together.

When Sheryl and Scott had thanked him for his help yet again, and gone home, Harry and Murphy sat on a bench just outside the precinct. For a long moment, Harry just sat there, staring down at his hands, thinking.

“Dresden?”

He blinked and looked at Murphy.

“You okay?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied, honest for once. “Something’s going on here, Murphy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Paul Marshall has a brother. A brother who has been following me and tracking my every movement for at least a couple weeks. It took me an embarrassingly long time to even notice, and when I confronted him, he let slip that someone had hired both him and his brother for a job. Follow me. And find Scott.”

“Ah. That’s why you knew to get to Scott.”

“Yeah.”

“Who hired them?”

“I don’t know. They don’t know.”

“You sure?”

Harry gazed at her, his expression dark. “Believe me, the way I asked them... I would have known if they lied.”

“Okay then...”

“So all I know is that someone is gunning for me. And Scott. And I don’t know who and I don’t know why. But I have a very bad feeling that things are about to get much worse.”

Murphy nodded.

They were both silent for a minute or two, stewing in their thoughts. “Well,” Murphy said finally, “I guess we better shore up our defenses then.” She reached out and patted Harry’s arm and said, “we’ve got this, Harry.”

And for the first time in a long time, Harry felt that Murphy had finally stopped doubting him, felt certain that this time she would definitely have his back. He took a deep breath and smiled.

“Yeah... I guess we do.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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